


Enthralled

by Bhelryss



Series: ylisseweek2018 [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/F, Frederick is a minor character, prompt: blood, there's some nudity and some sexy stuff but it's not huge, trans girl phila, ylisseweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 19:58:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13372005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bhelryss/pseuds/Bhelryss
Summary: Ylisseweek, Day 1: BloodThe blood of the Exalt is the blood of dragons. That means that Emmeryn has what might be called fangs, and her nails are harder than normal and trend towards an unusual sharpness, and her eyes reflect moonlight and torchlight as an unnerving green flash.Phila loves Emmeryn anyway.





	Enthralled

“The Exalted family of Ylisse isn’t human,” people in other nations whisper. “They’re as inhuman as the manakete of old,” a xenophobic subset of those other people shout, to their children, their cousins, their grandparents. “They have no right to be rulers of decent,  _ human _ people!” As though they are unaware of a full-blooded manakete living in Valm, of the trade in full-blooded manakete children that goes on under their own noses. 

But the people of Ylisse know this: their line of rulers is not human. Probably hasn’t been in long generations, even from before their pact with Naga herself. The dragon blood, they know, makes them great protectors at their best, and glutinous misers at their worst. Sometimes it’s true, that when the blood is strong, they don’t appear entirely human. Claws, fangs, ridged or scaled ears, and patches of skin that are practically scaled. They never light up, as the Voice does, with patterns of light that dance along the surface of their bodies, but when the blood is right you can see where, on the bodies of the Exalted line, they might just glow were they only a bit less human, and a bit more dragon.

From the moment Emmeryn was born to her parents, proud as they were for an heir, it was clear that the dragon was going to be strong in her. Her ears were born ridged, with the feathered look of the manakete and much like her father. Dickard looked upon his heir with half-lidded eyes and a smug satisfaction, purring with the success of his growing family. The ears were feathered and the brand was prominent upon her forehead, and other signs of strong blood would come as she aged.

Emmeryn was five, and frequently more dragon than human girl. She bit at her caretakers, and bit at newborn Chrom’s caretakers, and coughed sparks when she was ill. Her claws had grown in excessively sharp, and she poked holes in the hems of her dresses when she grew fed up with the length and took the skirt in hand as she ran, impatient with walking. But the blood was strong in her, so her caretakers took it in stride, and her father puffed up with his pride, and the seamstresses despaired of her dresses but chuckled all the same.

For the best exalts had always been strong in the blood. 

Emmeryn was eleven, and crowned, and still more dragon than girl. Chrom was proving to be more boy than dragon, and Lissa young enough that the blood didn’t show very strongly in her at all. Exalt Emmeryn loved them both with a feral fierceness, and insisted on tucking them both into bed at night, no matter how busy she was supposed to be, no matter how anyone tried to convince her otherwise. She would smooth her hands over their hair, mindful of her claws, and trace the scales over Chrom’s nose and the softly pointed shell of Lissa’s ears with her eyes.

If she could get away with it, and she often did get away with anything when she bared her fangs to the fools who thought they could force her to do other than what she wanted, Chrom and Lissa would play and study and sleep in the room she was doing her work. It soothed her in a way let let her be more girl than dragon, to have her only family there at the tips of her claws. Blinking slowly, with Chrom’s face pillowed on her foot and Lissa napping in her lap, Emmeryn purred, paperwork completed and a moment of stillness hoarded with relish.

Phila was thirteen, possessive of her new name and grateful for the escape from an aunt who still called her, “Little Lord,” when she enlisted in the pegasus knights. The long tunic she wore was blue, and the stockings she’d chosen were gold, and her boots matched her tunic in a way she thought were fetching. She didn’t look any different from any of the other girls, training with a lance, learning how to care for their soon-to-be mounts, and she was glad of it. She was also, however, the only child of a noble house from the far south of Ylisse, and she was skeptical that the royal line of Ylisse was  _ really _ descended from dragons.

“They’re just people,” Phila argued, fussing with her stockings again because they refused to stay up, “I mean. They can’t really be like lizards, right?” She was surrounded by her trainee unit, a group of girls in pink and red and green tunics, gossipping in their bunks. “That’s just something city folk make up to scare people from the country.” 

“No, really!” Elena insisted. She was a daughter of an Ylissetol family, and she would swear up down and sideways that she’d even seen the exalt herself. “I saw her once, before you came. She has the ears, and her eyes catch the light like a cat! They flash green, in the torchlight.” Phila wrinkled her nose and had half a mind to call her a liar.

“And Prince Chrom has scales across his nose, honest!” 

Phila made a flippant gesture to show Elena exactly what she thought of  _ that _ . All lies, probably. She wasn’t as green as the springtime grass, she could tell when someone was trying to make a fool of her. So she turned in early, while the other girls stayed up and gossipped. 

Emmeryn was twelve and Phila was still thirteen when they first met, in the hallways of Ylissetol. Still more dragon than girl, Emmeryn roamed her hallways with bare feet, barely making noise against the flagstones, poking holes in the hem of her cape as she gathered it in hand so she might run. Phila, all girl and all human to boot, turned a corner without looking and caught the exalt just right, as she was sprinting to her next appointment, so they tumbled to the floor. The first time they met, Emmeryn ended up sitting on Phila’s chest, caught off guard and just...staring.

No better prepared for this encounter, Phila stared back just as openly, taking in the draconic ears, the golden scales that dotted her throat, and the fangs that showed through her bemused smile. The claws that rested gently on the fabric of her tunic over her stomach, that made her feel just a little wiggly inside. “Um,” Phila said, intelligently, “Lady Emmeryn?”

She tilted her head, blonde curls slipping off her shoulders as her unearthly green eyes stared straight into Phila’s soul. Now that Emmeryn’s face had caught her attention, Phila could see golden scales at the corners of her eyes and at the edge of her hair line. She smiled, perhaps a little sharply, and Phila had to swallow and wet her lips. “My lady, I will be late to training…” She protested weakly, as Emmeryn continued to stare at her deeply.

And then she was released, Emmeryn getting to her feet with a grace that left Phila speechless. “By all means, trainee,” she said, as though she thought she were twenty two and not twelve. Phila, ungraceful with a new growth spurt and the everything of the encounter, stumbled off to her practice thinking of scales and fangs and bright, luminous eyes.

Then, after that, Phila swore she kept noticing Emmeryn. Speaking with the commanders while she was out in the practice yard, sweaty and tired. Herding her siblings through the mess hall on a short cut while Phila was inhaling her dinner ration. Emmeryn was there at her junior knighting, though honestly that was just protocol, so it probably didn’t count.

Maybe she was just imagining it.

(After a year or so, Phila was pretty sure she wasn’t imagining it, but she didn’t think it could really be anything to do with her. Not really.)

When Phila was eighteen, Emmeryn had just turned seventeen, and she’d really started to grow into the sharp, alien angles of her face and frame. Her siblings had not proved to be quite as strong as her in the blood, but Chrom had a few strikingly draconic features on display as he stomped around Ylissetol in a preteen funk. Lissa was sweet and darling and utterly human looking, except for the pinched point to her ears. (Lissa, however, had showed to be more dragon in behavior than her brother. She had a tendency to hoard that Chrom simply didn’t, despite his more obvious signs of the exalted heritage. Frogs lived in her chambers, and she growled in a very human way at those who suggested she needed fewer pets.)

Phila had established herself as a very reliable junior knight, with steady aim and a pegasus who was extraordinarily fond of combat situations and practice battles. She and her senior partner had been assigned to the Exalt and her family, along with a paladin and his junior knight named Frederick, for the summer. A rotation that Phila had been both dreading and looking forward to. Dreading, because her oddly frequent sightings of the Exalt and her family hadn’t stopped, since that first, awkward meeting, but looking forward to it because those glances of the Exalt had let her develop a very embarrassing crush on her lady.

It was a subject of great teasing, for her, with the other girls in her unit. 

“There she is,” laughed her senior knight, a friendly woman named Annette who had a wife back at the capitol. The Exalt was taking her brother and sister to the sea for a week, as she had for years, and Phila was wondering (hoping? Dreading? Impossible to tell, honestly) if she was going to see Emmeryn in clothing more suitable to swimming than the heavy cloak and modest white dress she wore while in the capitol. “Your Lady Love, Phila, look.” 

And, for all that she didn’t want to look, she did. 

Emmeryn was walking up to the front of their group of retainers and knights and personnel, shining like the sun. Golden and resplendent and with Lissa hanging off one arm and Chrom stomping up ahead of her with a frown, and a pleased smile on her face. The sun was kind to Emmeryn, as it always was, and Phila’s heart hammered faster in her chest to watch the exalt flash a smile in her direction. A silly grin on her own face, Phila turned back to her mount and Annette’s viciously satisfied smile. 

“Oh, you are so smitten, Phila” she said with a laugh, slapping a supportive hand to Phila’s back. “Don’t worry though, rookie, I’ll keep you busy enough you’ll only have time to dream of impressing your Lady Love in your sleep.” This was not super reassuring, but it did end up being mostly true. Phila was kept so busy with duties and watches and training against Sir Frederick that she barely saw Emmeryn, and so her thoughts and attention wandered only at meals or just before she drifted to sleep.

It was only at the end of their stay near the shore that Phila got a moment for herself. A country girl, she’d not been quite close enough to visit the shore, so she spent this precious free time sitting on the sand, almost in the dunes. Staring, entranced by the breaking waves she’d seen from above, she didn’t notice Emmeryn until she’d finished making herself comfortable by Phila’s side. The exalt flashed Phila a mischievous, fanged smile, when she noticed Phila looking.

“Hello, Trainee,” Emmeryn greeted slowly, wiggling her toes deeper into the loose sand, throwing her head and hair backwards as she arched her back and enjoyed the feeling of sun on skin and scales. Curls burned honey-gold in the orange light, green eyes only a flash of color behind sunlit lashes. The skin of her chest, exposed to the sun because of her loosely tied wrap dress, and a big strip of usually covered thigh showing as she stretched out in the sands like a sated cat. If Phila hadn’t been trying so hard to look anywhere but at her liege, she would have seen the glances Emmeryn was throwing her way. 

“Hello, my lady.” Phila said with a strangled sort of determination. If Annette heard about this she would never hear the end of it. If anyone saw how she’d been half-raised to attention by Emmeryn’s stretches and quiet vocalizations of satisfaction, she would die. So she would act natural. She would act natural until it killed her. Face as red as the sunset-painted clouds, Phila still couldn’t keep herself from sneaking peeks. “Has your trip been good?”

Her answer was an outstretched leg, toes pointed out to the shore, and a laconic, “Oh,  _ yes _ .” Phila had to swallow around a dry mouth, and thought very hard of the face Frederick had made when she’d whipped a lance between his eyes to leave a mark. “I have always enjoyed the shore.” Emmeryn answered, digging her fingers and claws into the sand and scowling at the back of Phila’s neck. 

It was the work of a moment, as Phila kept her head turned solely to the beach stretching away from them both, for Emmeryn to adjust her collar. She walked the very line of decency, as she positioned the neckline just so. So that a rather more generous amount of skin was subjected to the sun, just shy of letting the pink of her areola show and letting her barely-covered breasts frame the golden scales on her sternum. 

_ How much _ , Emmeryn thought grimly,  _ would it take to get her to kiss me _ ? Emmeryn knew Phila’s name, knew her rank. Knew her senior knight’s name, and the knew well the way Phila looked, stripped down to her lightest training uniform, muscles flexing as she turned in the training yard. She saw Phila turn her head, eyes catching the flash of sunset off the scales that dotted Emmeryn’s chest and following the lines of her collar as it dipped low, lower than could ever be truly proper, and then they  _ jerked back to watch the crash of waves on the sand _ .

Emmeryn, who still struggled to be girl rather than dragon sometimes, wanted to hiss in frustration.

She’d tried being coy, hanging around where Phila frequented, hoping she’d get the hint. She’d just tried outright solicitation, asking to be touched as loud as she could without the feeble things that were words. Emmeryn was at her wits end, here on this beach. There was sand under her claws, and clinging to her skin. She wanted to pull her dress back up, or maybe not, and pin Phila to the dunes so Emmeryn could kiss every inch of her face, her neck, her strong arms. 

Emmeryn wanted to shift her claws down Phila’s back leaving trails of her attentions, press her lips to the pulse in the knight’s neck, and leave marks for all to know that the Exalt had  _ intentions _ . She wanted to hold hands in public and sleep in the same spaces, and Emmeryn wanted her head in between Phila’s thighs to make her scream, and Emmeryn wanted most to know every part of Phila, inside and out. It was the dragon in her that was so sure of what she wanted so quickly, but it was the human that grew so impatient. 

Uncaring if Phila saw, Emmeryn did pull her dress back up, so her chest was more fully covered. She sprawled in the sand ungracefully, arms up by her head and her legs sprawled out comfortably.  _ If I’m not going to kiss or be kissed this evening, I might as well be comfortable _ , she rationalized. She turned her head to look at Phila, who was slowly, timidly turning her head back to look at Emmeryn. The exalt smiled, a gentle, unsure thing that showed very little fang, and kept the eye contact for a moment before turning her head to watch the clouds change colors as the sun set further.

“Do you not want to kiss me?” Emmeryn asked, finally giving in and vocalizing what had settled sourly on the inside of her throat. She kept her eyes on the sky, knowing her ears were drooping at the tips, giving away how much emotion she had invested in this. She’d thought Phila had been interested, she’d caught her staring...Emmeryn just didn’t understand. “Is it the dragon?” She asked quietly, barely whispered and barely audible.

Phila, having successfully defeated her arousal, now that Emmeryn wasn’t actively tempting her, turned to Emmeryn with a quickness that sent sand flying. “No, no, my lady that isn’t the case.” Careful not to throw sand onto Emm as she positioned herself differently, Phila leaned back onto the sand and reached slowly, tentatively for one of her lady’s hands.

“I just...you’re the exalt.” Phila explained, trying not to think, giddily, that Emmeryn  _ did _ want to be kissed by her. “And I’m,” Phila began, but was unable to finish her sentence. She was a rustic noble’s daughter, from a backwater Ylissean province. A knight in service to her queen, who had no business dreaming about chaste kisses in dark corners. Not so chaste kisses in brightly lit hallways. She’d mostly kept herself from thinking of even less chaste things, but there had been dreams in the night, of...other things.

“Would you kiss me?” Emmeryn asked, after she had thought about that. With her hair splayed out on the sand and her sharply green eyes half-lidded, Phila thought she looked like a painting from one of her less-than-chaste daydreams. She propped herself up on one elbow, the other hand warm in Phila’s grip, and she looked Phila deep in the eyes. “Will you kiss me now?” She asked, as though it was a challenge, and not a request. 

Emmeryn tipped her head up, lips slightly parted, eyes suddenly wide and open and inviting. Phila wanted to, she did. She wanted to kiss Emmeryn so badly, for them both to use their free hands to touch and pull each other closer. She did want that. So Phila leaned forward, crowding their faces close together, and hesitated. Would she be a poor kisser? Would Phila disappoint? Hesitated, and then told herself it didn’t matter. She would kiss just fine, and Emmeryn would be so impressed they would kiss some more, until the sun set and someone had come to find them. 

She closed the distance, eyes closed and full of confidence. Her nose bumped harshly into Emmeryn’s cheekbone, and Emmeryn’s sharp chin made contact with Phila’s lower lip when they tried to realign. They pulled pack, Phila sucking on her wounded lip, and Emmeryn looked put out and pouty. “Again?” Phila asked, miming with her hands the act of kissing. She desperately wanted one more chance to redeem herself.

For a moment, Emmeryn’s eyes flicked to the side and then down, as she thought about it. “Stay still,” she commanded, slowly reaching for Phila’s face. The pads of her fingers landed gently along the along her jaw, under her ear, with her thumb and claws resting carefully just under Phila’s cheekbones. “I just want to...do this.” And she leaned in, haltingly, by inches. Until her lips touched Phila’s own.

And held the position, lips just touching, marveling at the sensation, and Phila’s closeness, before pulling back, pink in the face and looking triumphant. “Again?” Phila asked, lifting a hand to keep Emmeryn’s palm on her cheek. “One more time?” Emmeryn smiled large, broad, fangs peeking out and eyes bright. She leaned back in with more confidence, and nipped gently at Phila’s lower lip, as they slowly explored kissing together.

Frederick came to find them before the sun was fully set, The shadows purple, Phila’s and Emmeryn’s lips were red from the number of kisses they had exchanged, and they both blushed prettily when he cleared his throat and looked pointedly at the darkening sky. Phila pulled her hands away from Emmeryn’s hips, feeling quite caught. “Sir Annette is looking for you, Phila. And, Lady Emmeryn, Lady Lissa has called for you.” 

Emmeryn, despite her blush, took the interruption in stride. “Is that so?” Pursing her lips at Phila in a way that certainly meant...something, Emmeryn pushed off the sand to her feet. “Well, I would never keep Lissa waiting.” Phila looked up to her, still in the sand, with the lingering feeling of Emmeryn’s hands on her face and in her hair, and saw Naga. 

Perhaps not literally, because Phila still saw every draconic, human inch of Emmeryn, but she looked up and she thought she understood exactly why the church followed Naga to this day. There was power, and compassion there. Phila stared, wide eyed, still giddy with the kisses they’d shared. Emmeryn turned to look back, locking eyes with Phila. “Well, are you not coming?” 

She scrambled after her exalt gladly.

Frederick and Phila grew close, after that beach trip ended. Maybe it was that Phila suddenly recognized his dark hair in the mess hall, or on the training field. Part of it was definitely that Frederick was already aware of Phila’s feelings for Emmeryn and Emmeryn seeming reciprocation, so he was a safe, and generally supportive and kind person to speak with about any topic of conversation. Plus, Phila was finding out,  Frederick was kind of hilarious when he let himself be.

So Phila went back into the general rotation of knights after summer ended, training and living as any other, except for one exception. The part where Emmeryn would pull her aside, push her into a slightly obscured area, and kiss her with a dragon’s fierceness. Until Phila was dizzy, until Phila thought herself so in love she could burst with the intensity of it. Emmeryn would pull Phila aside, and afterwards, with her head spinning with kisses and her heart racing, Phila would throw herself into a seat next to Frederick in the mess.

“I think I love her,” Phila said, every time without fail. Lips red and a rising bruise on the underside of her jaw that was too round and too oddly placed to be from training. Sometimes a little out of breath, as though Emmeryn had kissed away her ability to breathe. She smacked a hand on Frederick’s shoulder, smiling wide and loose and easy, “She kisses like an angel.” 

And, maybe Fred’s shoulders would be a little stiff, as Phila leaned onto the table in front of them and sighed at her food as though it were a sketch of Emmeryn’s face, and therefore so much more enthralling than the plain fare it was. He never invited these conversations, but he was a good sport about it, always. So he sighed, and gamely replied, “You say this every time.” Fred paused, as was customary (he was ever so fond of choosing his words with care). “Did you even talk to her this time?” 

Because for months, ever since the summer ended and now into the winter, Phila had wanted to speak with Emmeryn. Wanted to “really get to know her”, as she’d said to Frederick on more than one evening, still flush in the face from her latest kissing excursion. It wasn’t that she disliked the kisses, in fact, it was just the opposite.

“No...Not yet,” Phila admitted, because it was a little hard to remember the mental list she’d given herself when Emmeryn had discovered just how much Phila liked it when she got a little too excited about giving the knight kisses. It was hard to remember that Phila wanted more than kisses when she’d already been kissed silly and was on her way to supper to sigh, lovestruck as ever, and speak with Frederick. 

Frederick gave her a serious, weighty look that said,  _ Well, you should. And you should do it soon _ . All without him saying a word. Phila put her hands up to placate his judgement, and sighed. She was well aware of his opinion, but kissing Emmeryn was just...everything she thought she’d ever wanted from a kiss. And it was so hard to keep her head when that head was spinning. “I’ll try again tomorrow,” Phila insisted, nudging Frederick with her elbow. He was always such a good sport about this.

“All right,” Phila insisted, shaking off the last of the dazed and lovestruck airs. “Tell me about your day, then, since we’ve already covered the highlight of mine.” And Fred sighed, and looked very put upon, but also kind of pleased, so it worked out well.

“Well,” Frederick said, back suddenly held straighter than it had been, as though he were giving a report. (Phila hid her smile by putting a forkful of food in her face.) “I heard that the Knight Commander was retiring, from his second in command.” Phila made a mental note to look into that, she thought she would really like a promotion. Being Knight Commander sounded like an excellent career goal. “And I put my name forward for being the personal knight to the Exalt’s younger siblings.” He finished. “I have always thought serving the exalted line itself would be an honorable and excellent cause to devote myself to.”

“You’re an outstanding knight, Frederick,” Phila said with a smile, elbowing him fondly. “They would be lucky to have you.” Then they settled in with idle chit chat as they ate their meals, before finally they wandered off to find some sleep.

It was only after fall and winter had passed, that Phila got up the nerve to speak with Emmeryn. The spring sun had been warm and gentle and bright on Emmeryn’s hair, the land carpeted with green things and new flowers, and Phila had gather a handful of buds and blooms in her hands. Oh, she’d been so nervous, her heart had felt at home in her throat, and her palms had been sweaty around the flower stems. 

“I want,” Phila had said, with her mouth drier than the Plegian desert, “to be your girlfriend.” She’d stood there in the sun, shoulder warmed and face aflame, with the flowers held before her like an offering. Her face had felt like fire and she’d been so nervous she’d thought it entirely likely she’d die before she ever got an answer.

Emmeryn, for her part, had looked confused. “Aren’t we already?” she’d asked, slowly and with concern. Which had made Phila feel quite small, to find out that she hadn’t been on the same page as Emmeryn at all. She must have seen Phila’s expression drop, because she stepped forward to hold Phila’s hands around the bouquet. “Tell me.” She demanded, direct as only the dragon could be. 

She hesitated. 

“I just want...to know you.” Phila said, still hesitant. The flowers between them perfumed the air sweetly, and Emmeryn’s gaze held her in place. Embarrassed, Phila cast her gaze down and lifted her shoulders. “It isn’t that I don’t like the kissing,” she tried to justify, “it’s only that…” Naga above, how could she word the feeling in her heart? “I want...everything.” She tried.

No, that wasn’t right. “I want to know all of you, Lady Emmeryn,” Phila said, with more confidence. “Not just the way you kiss or the feeling of your hands touching me. Or just the way you smile when you are happy, or feeling clever, or when your siblings do something silly.” And Phila stepped forward, closing some of the distance between them, and rested her forehead against Emmeryn’s. “I want know  _ you _ .

“The way you think, what you think, how your heart beats and what it beats for, my lady. I would know all of you, and let you know me in those ways too, if you want it.” 

Phila’s heart beat a rapid pace as she spoke, and it felt like it only sped up as she finished. She did not pull her head back, to look into Emmeryn’s eyes. Phila kept her breathing steady and her ears open, even though she kept her eyes closed.

She opened her eyes wide when Emmeryn moved, and pressed her lips to the corner of Phila’s own. “I want that.” She said with assertiveness. Emmeryn released Phila’s hands and used them to cup Phila’s face. There was a wild joy in Emmeryn’s eyes that Phila could see, and it buoyed her up, and made Phila feel as though the world was at her fingertips.

“I will learn you, Phila.” Emmeryn promised, a draconic rumble to her words. “And you will learn me.” And then she’d leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss Phila roughly, before she’d pulled back again to smile like she was hungry and had just found a meal. “We,” Emmeryn growled, punctuating it with a nip to Phila’s jawline, “will learn each other.”

It had, Phila thought rather warmly on reflection, gone fairly well.

Emmeryn’s twenty fourth birthday was an affair celebrated well by her family. It was not in her wishes to throw a party, nor to hold a grand affair. She wanted a quiet day with her siblings, with the family’s Frederick and Phila, personal knights to the exalted bloodline. She wanted a long night with Phila, her devoted girlfriend. 

They’d been alone together in this bedroom before, alone as they were with the doors closed. They’d been together on the bed, curled up with each other on the floor, and leaning against the wall with one on their knees and the other with their head thrown back. But they’d also been together chastely, spending nights curled up together, sleeping soundly and comfortably in the embrace of each other. Phila would brush out Emmeryn’s curls at night and Emmeryn would braid Phila’s hair in the morning.

Phila’s invitation to the exalt’s bedroom was really nothing new. She half lived there, after all, half her clothes were hung in the closet alongside Emmeryn’s dresses and most of her stockings were folded in a drawer in Emmeryn’s dresser. What was new was the gift in her pocket, the results of a commission and Phila’s determined savings. 

She wasn’t sure when she wanted to give it to Emmeryn. In the morning? Before they fell asleep together? Both seemed like excellent options, and Phila could hardly bring herself to decide. There was this expectation about proposals that had become a sort of nightmare for Phila, afraid the moment wouldn’t be special enough. Or worse, that the proposal would be too special, and Emmeryn would find fault with the wedding, or their married life together.

It was surely ridiculous, but it had been a very vivid fear in the weeks leading up to this moment.

The door opened easily, but Phila held it just barely ajar, all the better to peek in. Was she early? Was Emmeryn there? Was she late? From the look of the room, from her vantage point outside a cracked door, it was...impossible to tell.

Her palms were sweaty, and she gnawed on her lower lip as she debated entering. Slowly, hoping not to let the door creak, Phila closed it. And then knocked twice, before her courage failed her. “Come on in, Phila!” Emmeryn called, and Phila let herself in.

Emmeryn looked comfortable at her desk, one leg tucked underneath her and her heavy cloak and crown abandoned to let her curls bounce loosely, casually off her shoulders. Shoes abandoned to better feel the rug under her. The gift in Phila’s pocket was warm in her thoughts, and Phila crossed the room readily to press a kiss to the corner of Emmeryn’s mouth. 

She stood to meet Phila, and tugged them both away from the desk with an odd expression. “Did you miss me?” Emmeryn asked, trailing a clawed finger down Phila’s shirt. Flirting shamelessly, and Phila openly receptive to it.

“Every moment since dinner has been a moment too long,” Phila answered, kissing the scales on the bridge of Emmeryn’s nose, knowing it was a ticklish sensation. Emmeryn laughed, and pulled Phila closer so she could kiss her soundly, leaving her breathless when they parted. “What were you working on?”

“I don’t believe I shall tell you,” Emmeryn said, as though it were a very important secret. She waited, perhaps for Phila to say something, before she took pity and clued Phila in. “I believe you must guess.” Once up on the balls of her feet, Emmeryn whispered in Phila’s ear, “For every incorrect guess, I get a kiss.”

This was her opportunity, Phila realized. She captured Emmeryn’s hands, and fluidly took a knee. The very picture of a loyal knight, Phila pressed a kiss to the back of each hand, to the tips of each finger. “Lady Emmeryn, this is no guess, but,” Phila began, butterflies in her stomach and her heart in her throat. The sun had set and the window behind Emmeryn looked out on a dark sky and a carpet of torchlight stars. 

She fumbled the box as she reached into her pocket to draw it out, but recovered enough to smoothly present it. “Would you marry this knight of yours, who loves you ever so? You have carried my heart for years, would you now carry this ring?” And she revealed the simple band that had a pattern as if dragon scales etched into it. 

“That was an excellent guess,” Emmeryn answered, falling to her knees within the area she well knew was within the circle Phila could make with her arms. She took the ring in her hand, and smoothly put it onto her finger. “Would you believe,” Emmeryn whispered into the skin under Phila’s ear, breath a wisping sensation and and just a teasing promise of kisses to come. 

“That I have been writing out vows?” She asked rhetorically, choosing to give Phila a mark on the underside of her jaw. Her claws could be felt through the fabric of Phila’s shirt, as Emmeryn tried to pull her closer. “I want to marry you, Phila.” She said with a pleased finality. “I know you, I have learned you.” The Exalt who was an equal mix of dragon and girl purred, “I want you to be my  _ wife _ .” 

Then, with a slow blink and a mischievous smile, Emmeryn pushed her curls off one shoulder, to reveal a portion of neck perfect for Phila to kiss and suck on, to leave her own marks in turn. An invitation Phila accepted, and Emmeryn guided the knight’s hands to adjust the straps of her dress, to show more skin that Emmeryn intended to have kissed. To show off how the scales on her sternum glittered in the light, framed by her newly freed breasts, and Emmeryn sighed with satisfaction when Phila freed a hand to go between her legs and under her smalls. 

“I love you,” Phila whispered reverently against Emmeryn’s neck, fingers ghosting across Emmeryn’s clit, her own pants growing tight. Emmeryn held tight to Phila’s shoulders, making the beautiful sighs and exhalations she knew drove Phila wild. “We’re going to get married,” She said in a single exhale. Worshipping the skin between Emmeryn’s breasts, and working her mouth closer to the hardening nipples. “We’re going to be so happy.”

“We are,” she agreed, tilting her hips into the teasing touches. “I love you so much, but _touch_ _me_ ,” Emmeryn challenged, wanting more than just teasing fingers and jubilant love making on the floor, before pulling back to press a teasing kiss to Phila’s nose, and then the pulse in her neck. 

She got to her feet with an almost inhuman grace, and pulled Phila along by the arm. They would make it to the bed, but not before Emmeryn shed her dress on the floor without pause, and Phila’s shirt was shredded by eager, clawed hands. Straddling Phila’s lap, teasing her partner with every shift and movement and loving every second Phila let her be in control, Emmeryn put Phila’s palm on her breast and whispered into her ear, “Touch me.”


End file.
